“the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs” -the be good tanyas

Archive for June, 2008

today i had my largest class yet…seven enthusiastic and curious toddlers with their mamas! i must say that exploring music and movement with little ones keeps me on my toes. a wonderful way to keep the children engaged for 45 minutes at this age is to have a big basket of tricks. by tricks i mean puppets, scarves, big drum, balls, shakers….the list goes on. there are few pauses in between activities to keep them from wandering off into the kitchen or down the hall (although there is always an occasional wanderer who just can’t resist those stairs!) we sing and dance our way through every transition.

a favorite activity for the little ones is a game we call “jack-in-the-box”. a child crawls into the big drum and sits down with a scarf over their head. the group sings “jenny in the box so quiet and still, won’t you come out?” and jenny replies “YES I WILL!” as she takes off the scarf. it is a beautiful process that takes place for each child as they build up the confidence and ability to crawl in the drum, to wear the scarf, to pull it off, and to sing the words. the photo in this post was taken back in october after one of my classes. rowan and keaton continued the game on their own.